This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
It is a common saying that nature has given to each of us two ears and one tongue, because we ought to do less talking than listening.
An Indian has his knowledge for use, and it only appears in use. Most white men that we know have theirs for talking purposes.
Sosan Zenji, aka Chien-chih Seng-Tsan or Ch'an Seng-ts'an
Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and in passivity, assertion and denial. To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know. To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance. Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.
Appearance | Assertion | Enlightenment | Ignorance | Meaning | Nothing | Reality | Search | Talking | Thinking | Truth | Will | World | Think |
Alan Watts, fully Alan Wilson Watts
The future is a concept - it doesn't exist! There is no such thing as tomorrow! There never will be because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.
Eternal | Future | Present | Talking | Thinking | Time | Tomorrow | Will |
We don`t really know who woman is. She remains in that precise place within man where darkness begins. Talking about women means talking about the darkest part of ourselves, the undeveloped part, the true mystery within. In the beginning, I believe man was complete and androgynous-both male and female, or neither, like angels. Then came the division, and Eve was taken from him. So the problem for man is to reunite himself with the other half of his being, to find the woman who is right for him-right be she is simply a projection, a mirror of himself. A man can`t become whole or free until he has set woman free-his woman. It`s his responsibility, not hers. He can`t be complete, truly alive until he makes her his sexual companion, and not a slave of libidinous acts or a saint with a halo.
Darkness | Man | Means | Mystery | Right | Talking | Woman |
Fran Lebowitz, fully Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitz
The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
Talking |
The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
Many people are good at talking about what they are doing, but in fact do little. Others do a lot but don't talk about it; they are the ones who make a community live.
Jean Paul, born Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, aka Jean Paul Richter
Long talking begets short hearing, for people go away.
John Robert Seeley, fully Sir John Robert Seeley
A grain of real knowledge, of genuine controllable conviction, will outweigh a bushel of adroitness and to produce persuasion there is one golden principle of rhetoric not put down in the booksto understand what you are talking about
Persuasion | Rhetoric | Talking | Will | Understand |
Junius, psyeudonym of unknown English Political Writer NULL
Guilt is a poor, helpless, dependent being. Without the alliance of able, diligent, and let me add, fortunate fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty culprit be obstinately silent, it forms a deadly presumption against him; if he speaks, talking tends only to his discovery, and his very defense often furnishes the materials for his conviction.
Defense | Presumption | Talking | Guilty |
Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard
Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted.
Talking |
Lew Welch, fully Lewis Barrett Welch, Jr.
Living is made up of these little things - a day to day business punctuated with things seen, seen best when we weren't looking for them, or things that just happened to us while we were walking "dully along" and that we ought to notice these things. It is very easy to bandage the eyes and tell everyone that life is dull. But I am called odd by these people because I really don't think so. I try to make the day have a THING in it, and it usually does whether I try or not. And that makes the day. Period. But I am purposeless. I am talking of this far too seriously, but it rather hurts when I think that I was once very vulnerable to the charges that come my way. I have tried so damned hard to put a thing as simply as it appeared to me, and tried too damned hard not to let myself blow up a simple happening into a symbol of unrequited love but to leave it as it is. Shit.
Business | Day | Life | Life | Little | Love | People | Talking | Business | Think |
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, fully David Martyn Lloyd Jones
Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you.
Life | Life | Listening | Problems | Self | Talking | Unhappiness |
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, pen name Louis-Ferdinand Destouches
We never change. Neither our socks nor our masters nor our opinions, or we're so slow about it that it's no use. We were born loyal and that's what killed us! Soldiers free of charge, heroes for everyone else, talking monkeys, tortured words, we are the minions of King Misery...It's not a life.
Talking |
Lou Holtz, fully Louis Leo "Lou" Holtz
I always tell our athletes, "The qualities you develop now, the things we're going to insist upon, will be with you for life, and they'll always be as sound and as good as they are now." All we're really talking about is a commitment to excellence.
Some men mistake talking about sense, for talking sense.